888Poker Review | Exclusive Sign-up Bonus from PokerRoomsOnline

One of the truly original online poker sites, 888poker (previously known as Pacific Poker) has slowly but surely become one of the biggest players in the online gaming world.

Thanks to a massive software overhaul in 2012 the site was able to distance itself from competitors and has been improving in leaps and bounds ever since.

These days 888poker offers a cutting-edge software suite that’s compatible with other 888 Holdings products like 888Casino, 888Sport and 888Bingo. 888poker is also one of the biggest poker sites in the world traffic-wise and offers a massive and varied player pool.

The 888poker software includes support for No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha and a variety of other poker variants. It’s also intuitive, snappy and aesthetically pleasing. The software is also available for nearly every device that you could think of including Windows and Apple computers as well as Android and iOS mobile devices.

888poker has aggressively recruited new players with some of the biggest sign-up bonuses and promotions in the business. The site has always kept a keen focus on recreational players which makes it a great place to get started playing online poker.

The site is also home to a dynamic team of ambassadors that help promote the game and 888poker. We’re talking about the likes of Kara Scott, Dominik Nitsche, Sofia Lövgren and Chris Moorman.

Best Selling Features:

Cutting-edge software

Large player pool

Great promotions for new players

Tons of tournaments

Support for Windows, OSX and mobile devices

Awesome Snap Poker fast-play variant

New BLAST lottery Sit & Go's with $300,000 Jackpots

Software

888poker’s software offers some of the best tech on the market with all the features you’d expect from a top-flight poker client.

First off it offers native support for Windows and Apple, which means you don’t have to mess around with annoying browser-only clients.

You can play No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha (fairly standard) but you’ll also have access to Seven-Card Stud, Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, which is a bit more unusual.

Unlike 888poker’s smaller competitors you’ll actually be able to find Stud and Omaha-8 games that are running thanks to 888poker’s large player pool.

The 888poker lobby is well designed with a solid visual representation of the various tournaments and cash games tables running in real time. You can also take advantage of the quick-seat function to get into a game immediately.

888poker also offers an excellent fast-fold poker variant called Snap Poker where you can instantly fold your way to a new hand. It’s great for action junkies who can’t stand the sometimes-slow pace of regular poker.

888poker is one of the only sites in the world that offers “live cam” tournaments where you can actually see your opponents (and they can see you!) if you like the physical tells part of the game.

As a side note 888poker also offers a rather large play-money section if you want to try it out before getting your hands dirty with actual real-money games. The 888poker Free Practice Mode is a great place to get started.

Mobile Poker

Mobile users will be happy to know that 888poker has full support for anything running Android or iOS. That includes iPhone, iPad and a variety of Android devices.

The mobile software is well designed and easy to use. 888poker’s Snap Poker is particularly great for mobile users since you can play a lot of hands on just one table. It’s a killer way to pass the time when you’re on the bus/train/commuting to work.

Occasionally 888poker even runs special tournaments for its mobile players.

Of course the mobile client doesn’t offer all the features of the desktop version and you’ll be hard pressed to multi-table or review your play with hand histories but it gets the job done.

You’ll probably want to stick with the desktop version if you’re going to play a particularly long tournament (or at least have access to very solid internet).

Traffic

888poker has fantastic traffic that has consistently ranked among the top five poker sites for years now.

How does a large player base help customers? Well you won’t struggle to find a game on 888poker, especially if it’s in the micro to small-stakes of $.01/$.02 to $.25/$.50.

If you stick to the small stakes you should be able to find NLHE, PLO, Stud, Sit & Go’s and MTTs to your heart’s content.

Once you start playing a little higher it gets a bit tougher but you’ll still be able to find a wide range of NLHE and PLO games ay every hour of the day – especially during European prime time.

888poker is also one of the few online poker sites that has enough traffic to offer legitimate high-stakes games, which is pretty cool if you ever plan on playing at that level. They’re also pretty fun to watch.

Tournaments

One of the other ways that players on 888poker benefit from the significant amount of traffic on the site is large tournaments. 888poker regularly runs MTTs with 100+ players so you’ll always have a shot at taking down a big payday.

These days 888poker has a special series of tournaments like The Goldfish, The Cyclone, The Lightning Six-Max and the Typhoon, which offer huge payouts.

The crown jewel on 888poker is the $150,000-GTD Whale, which takes place every Sunday. It costs $600 to buy into but it’s a legitimate shot at winning thousands of dollars.

If you like Sunday Majors then 888poker is one of the few sites that actually runs massive tournaments like The Whale.

If you like to gamble it up with the hopes of a huge payday, the new BLAST lottery Sit & Gos might be your thing. With a 6-12 minute time clock and up to 10,000x multiplied prize pools, you can win a major score quickly.

These 4-player hyper turbos are picking up steam quickly and are already a favorite among 888 players.

Soft Competition

888poker has always been a fairly soft site although no one is exactly sure why that is. Whatever the reason 888poker has generally been home to worse players than some of the other sites.

It might be the connection to online casinos that 888poker has always had. Regardless of the why, it offers some great spots. Even as players have improved over the years 888poker is still home to some very soft tables.

If you really want to go fishing you’ll want to stick to the micro-stakes but there are actually some decent tables in the mid-stakes as well; you just have to choose your spots with a little more care.

The big MTTs also have a fair amount of mediocre players, which is very helpful for improving your return on investment. If you’re just learning then it’s definitely a huge benefit to not have to contend with sharks 24/7, which is how it feels on some of the other sites.

Satellites to win packages for 888poker's signature 888Live and 888Live Local series are also amazingly good value. Just a few pennies can win you the poker vacation of a lifetime and a chance to play for life-changing money in amazing venues around the world.

Promos and Freerolls

888poker is very aggressive when it comes to attracting to new players and there are always a number of significant sign-up bonuses.

One way that 888poker has always distanced itself from competitors when it comes to deposit bonuses is the instant bonus.

Most other sites force you to play a significant number of hands before getting anything at all but 888poker is one of the few sites that from time to time offers a straight up bonus of $8 for free.

It’s fantastic for new players who have no intention of playing thousands of hands in order to unlock a $25 deposit match. Of course 888poker also offers those big sign-up bonus matches if you intend to go that way.

888poker tends to offer new players a collection of tickets to exclusive freeroll tournaments. There are a large number of freerolls on the site in general, which gives players the chance to potentially make something from nothing.

There are over $100,000 in free tournaments on 888poker every month.

VIP Program

888poker recently revamped its loyalty program to provide a little more value to recreational players. The 888poker Club rewards players with points every time they complete challenges at the poker tables -- or the casino or sportsbook, for that matter.

Once players hit a certain level of points they’ll start receiving Gold Tokens, which can be redeemed for prizes. Loyal players also receive Club Scratchboards every time they move up a certain number of status levels.

The really cool thing about 888poker’s loyalty program is that you can never move down a status level -- even if you play a lot less poker -- which is huge for casual poker players.

Keep in mind that all the changes to 888poker’s loyalty program are very good for new players but provide less value for hardcore grinders. In fact the high-end part of the loyalty program has been significantly diminished.

Regardless 888poker’s loyalty program is great for rec players as they’ll actually have a legitimate shot at winning prizes.